Theatre BC's Talent Bank

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Ken is the award-winning designer of such shows as The Overcoat, 7 Stories, Vigil, Hamlet, History of Things to Come, The Game of Love and Chance, The Imaginary Invalid, Susannah, and Lawrence and Hollman. He has designed for all the major theatres in Vancouver (The Vancouver Playhouse, The Arts Club, The Vancouver Opera Society) as well as many productions at the Tarragon Theatre in Toronto. He is the recipient of 13 Jessie Richardson Awards and a Dora Mavor Moore Award.

Theatre BC: Ken led a workshop on Introduction to the Set at Backstage 99.

David is an award winning Vancouver actor, playwright, and director. He is also the Co-Artistic Director of Yorick Theatre. As an actor he has worked with with many local theatre companies including the Arts Club (A Town Called Hockey and The Imaginary Invalid), Ruby Slippers (RubyCab and RubyCab 2000), four seasons with Bard on the Beach, and is an original member of Axis' and Touchstone's international hit comedy The Number 14.  His written works include Necropolis, Big Shoes to Fill (produced as a short film) and Beyond the Night Cafe. David's first play No Tears received an award in the North Shore Zone Festival in 1984.  David directed the critically acclaimed and "Pick of The Vancouver Fringe" play This Fringe Venue Is Now Being Held Hostage. He has also directed for two of Showcase Productions Actor's Jam at Pacific Theatre. David has appeared on the small screen in episodes of Night Visions, Strange Frequencies and M.O.W's.
 

Joan MacLean has been a professional actor for over 20 years. She received her Bachelor of Music from Brandon University and her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theatre from the University of Victoria. After graduating, she had the great good fortune of five years paid touring with Jim Leard’s Story Theatre Company out of Victoria. After that, she moved to Vancouver to create a theatre program for ‘at-risk’ youth in the downtown eastside through Fend Players Theatre Society. While in Vancouver, she continued to work as an actor while simultaneously teaching and studying. She did the Voice Intensive, studied clown, studied film acting and performed for several theatre companies including The Arts Club, Station Street Arts Centre, Touchstone Theatre, The Belfry Theatre. Joan was in ‘One Morning I Realized I was Licking The Kitchen Floor’, a hit Fringe comedy about Depression which was produced six times. And off and on for seven years she played 3 different roles in the hit comedy ‘Mom’s The Word’. In most recent years, Joan has taken to teaching piano lessons out of her home, singing in an acappella performance troupe, finding acting work during school hours and providing the domestic glue for her family. She has also been mentored for several years by Judith Koltai in a physical practice called Authentic Movement and is preparing to teach this. For the past 5 years, Joan has been meeting each summer for ten days with a group of professional dancers, writers, actors and teachers to create a performance piece called “The Cassandra Experience” Joan is currently collaborating with playwright Sharon Heath on a Clown Show called ‘The Kitchen Sink Musical”

Theatre BC: Joan faciltated a Production Workshop Tour for the Skeena Zone in April 2007.

Joan MacLeod grew up in North Vancouver and studied Creative Writing at the University of Victoria and UBC. She spent seven seasons as a playwright-in-residence at the Tarragon Theatre in Toronto. Her plays include 2000, Little Sister (Chalmers Award), The Hope Slide (Chalmers Award), Amigo's Blue Guitar (Governor General's Award), Toronto, Mississippi, and Jewel. She also wrote the libretto for The Secret Garden (Dora Mavor Moore Award) and both her prose and poetry often appear in literary journals. Her latest play, a one-woman show entitled The Shape of a Girl,  deals with teen peer pressure, bullying and the influence of the Reena Virk murder on the play's central character.

Theatre BC: Joan has given many Playwriting Workshops over the years for TBC.

Carol is a very busy director with the Vancouver Youth Theatre, teaching classes in Playbuilding, Acting and Shakespeare. Since 1987, she has directed many of their advanced Playbuilding shows, with performances at the Vancouver East Cultural Centre, The Vancouver Playhouse, The Richmond Gateway Theatre, The Firehall Arts Centre, and the Norman Rothstein Theatre. Carol is an accomplished stage and screen actor with a BFA in acting from the California School of Arts and is a certified drama teacher in BC.

Theatre BC: Carol led a workshop on Create and Perform A Play at Backstage 99.

David is an award-winning actor, director and theatre educator, whose work stretches from Ontario to Vancouver Island over a 20+ year period. He holds a BA in Multidsciplinary Drama and English from the University of Lethbridge. David has served as Artistic Director for TheatreOne (Nanaimo), Sunshine Theatre Co. (Kelowna) and Workshop West Theatre (Edmonton) and was nominated for a  Mayor's Award for Business and the Arts for Innovative Artistic Direction. Other nominations incl. Elizabeth Sterling Haynes Awards for Oustanding Supporting Actor for Italian-American Reconciliation (Phoenix Theatre), Barbarians (Workshop West Thetare) and for Outstanding Director for Warriors (Citadel Theatre). David has worked as a dramaturge for Workshop West Theatre, Kam Theatre , Alberta Playwrights' Network, Banff Centre Playwrights' Colony, U of Alberta and  Tarragon Theatre, among others. His teaching credits include stints with the University of Alberta , Citadel Theatre School, Atrstrek (Alberta Summer Drama School) as well as leading workshops on Acting, Audition Technique and Improvisation.

Jennifer is a Vancouver-based playwright and performer. Recently produced plays include her one-woman show "Mad About Barbie" and "Photographic Memory", presented by the Playwrights' Theatre Centre (formerly the New Play Centre).
She has done just about every theatre job imaginable, from publicist to lighting operator, including a stint as a theatre critic which, she says, was hampered by the fact that she actually loves theatre.

Theatre BC: Jennifer has worked as an Instructor at BACKSTAGE leading workshops in Playwriting. She has also served previously as a juror for TBC's Canadian National Playwriting Competition.

Libby is a British director, writer and teacher of some 30 years experience, who moved to Victoria in 1998 from Winnipeg, where she directed a number of plays for Prairie Theatre Exchange, including the world premier of Ian Ross' Governor General's Award winning play, fareWel. While in Winnipeg she co-founded Shakespeare in the Red, a company dedicated to working on Shakespeare's texts with First Nations performers.
Since moving to Victoria, she has worked for Kaleidoscope Theatre, The B.C. Festival of the Arts, The Canadian College for the Performing Arts, The Canadian College of Film and Acting, The Victoria Motion Picture School, where she was Manager of the Acting Program for two years, and the University of Victoria Theatre Dept., for whom she teaches two Acting classes.

 Theatre BC: In 1999 Libby directed a Re-Working Session at the Theatre BC New Play Festival, and served as juror for the National Playwriting Competition. Libby also served as adjudicator for the North Island Zone Festival in 2001.

Alison is a highly regarded voice artist and actor. She teaches speech arts and drama at a variety of institutions, such as Malaspina University-College in Nanaimo and the Bolton Academy of Spoken Arts in Vancouver. She also adjudicates regularly at speech festivals across Western Canada. Her stage credits include the Canadian premiere of Edward Albee's Three Tall Women at the Vancouver Playhouse and the Belfry Theatre , and a year of touring across Canada and the Eastern States with Kaleidoscope Story Theatre's Macbeth. Selected television and film credits include Beggars and Choosers, Stargate SG1, The X-Files, First Wave and Disney's Snowdogs. Alison has a bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Theatre from the University of Victoria and an Associateship in Speech & Drama from Trinity College London.

Chris is the co-artistic director of Carousel Theatre and has performed in their productions of The Hobbit, Merlin and Treasure Island at The Waterfront Theatre. Chris is also the creator of Theatre Under the Gun. He won a Jessie Richardson Theatre Award for "Script Adaptation" for his collaboration on Devil Box Cabaret in 1999. He also won " Outstanding Artistic Creation" for My Game at the Carousel Theatre Company in 2002. Other directing projects include Woman, Idiot, Lunatic, Criminal, Stuck, Barefoot in the Park, It's A Wonderful Life: A Musical and Gremlin for the Carousel Theatre Company

TheatreBC: Chris led a workshop on Comic Acting at Backstage 2000.

Andrew is graduate of the National Theatre School and Ottawa University.  He has been teaching for over 15 years at, among other places, Emory University in Atlanta,Georgia; Simon Fraser University and as a full time faculty member at Gastown Actors' Studio in Vancouver.  Andrew currently teaches acting for film and television at the Second Avenue Studio in Vancouver and Red Room Studio in Nanaimo. Andrew has served as a dramaturge to more than 17 new Canadian Scripts and is consulting director for the Kentucky Shakespeare Festival, Gastown Actors Studio and Theatre Emory. Some of  his television credits include Robin's Hood, Outer Limits, The Commish, X-Files, Dead Like Me, and he hosted a half hour show for the Knowledge Network.

 Theatre BC: Andrew has served as a juror for Theatre BC's Annual Canadian Playwrighting Competition; as Workshop Director for the 1997 winner Swollen Tongues and as a dramaturge for TBC's New Play Workshops, twice as an instructor at BACKSTAGE and, as requested by members, for numerous regional workshops throughout BC.  He has also adjudicated festivals for most of TBC's zones since 1994 and served as a Scene Development Director for MAINSTAGE 97.  He was MAINSTAGE 98's Director for Workshop Plays and the Master Class in Directing.  Andrew served as the Mainstage Adjudicator for MAINSTAGE 2001 in Kamloops and also served two years as instructor/mentor for Actoberfest, Theatre BC's weekend workshop for youth and adult members on Vancouver Island.

Lanni is a founding resident actor, director and Associate Director for Western Canada Theatre.  Her work as an actor has taken her to most of B.C's major professional theatres. Her past interests have included improvisation, CBC radio dramas and the mentoring of students of the spoken word.  Lanni's most recent assignment in the field of directing was the (WCT) mystery-thriller "Quarry", by Canadian playwright Mo Bock.  She is presently working on casting for next season.  Lanni is proud of her association with the active and vital organization, that is known to all theatre artists, as Theatre BC.

Theatre BC: Lanni has served as a Dramaturge Instructor for TBC's New Play Festival in Kamloops regularly since 2000 and served as a Playwriting Competition Juror in 2001. Lanni has also taught course workshops at Mainstage in Kamloops.

A graduate of the Theatre Department at UVic (acting focus), Nathan co-founded the Metro Studio in Victoria - now one of the busiest theatre venues in the province - during his time as Operations Manager at Intrepid Theatre. Nathan enjoyed three seasons as the Belfry Theatre’s Front of House Manager, and a further three at the Victoria Fringe, as Development and Volunteer Coordinator. In 2007 he joined the BC Arts Council in the Ministry of Tourism, Sport, and The Arts, as BCAC's Theatre Program Coordinator, and now lives and works in Vancouver as Producing Manager of Electric Company Theatre. Nathan has also worked professionally as an actor, technician, production manager, and designer, and was an adjudicator at the 2006 Vancouver Island One Act Play Festival. He credits his hometown community theatre - the Village Theatre in Qualicum - with sparking his passion for the arts.

Theatre BC: Nathan served as Juror for the 18th (2006) Annual Canadian Playwriting Competition.
 

Robert has worked across Canada as an actor, director and fight choreographer since graduating from Studio 58 in 1980. Locally, Robert has been seen on the stages of the Vancouver Playhouse, the Arts Club, Richmond Gateway Theatre, Touchstone Theatre and Green Thumb Theatre. He has also appeared in "the usual" American films and television shows. With John Lazarus, Robert adapted Feydeau's "L'Hotel Du Libre Exchange" into a sixties romp, "Hotel Freedom". Robert has directed more than twenty professional productions including "Peter Pan" for Richmond Gateway Theatre, "Barbie's Next Life" at the Kiss Project, and "The Odd Couple" for the Theatre Department of Douglas College. Bob was the Associate Artistic Director at Green Thumb Theatre in Vancouver for two years and his Production of "New Kid" was awarded the Reuters Prize for "Outstanding Production" at the 1997 Dublin International Theatre Festival. He directed the touring production of "The Number 14" for spring 2000. Bob also served as Artistic Director for Sunshine Theatre Co. in Kelowna.

Theatre BC: Robert has served as a Guest Director, Adjudicator of the North Shore and Okanagan Zone Festivals in 1998, the North Island Zone in 1999, and Kootenay Zone Festival in 2000. He has also proven to be a popular BACKSTAGE Instructor and Scene Development Director He served as dramaturge for a Finalist Round Table Session at the New Play Festival in Kamloops, 2002.

Theatre BC: Janet's previous Theatre BC credits include: Zone Adjudication, Scene Development, Special Course Workshop Instruction at Mainstage and Dramaturgy at Theatre BC's New Play Festival in Kamloops.

Theatre BC: Bill served as Adjudicator for Mainstage 2003 in Penticton.

Theatre BC: Frank served as Juror for the 14th Annual Canadian Playwriting Competition and has taught playwriting workshops.

Dawn received her BFA from the University of Victoria, and her Masters in Theatre Directing from the University of Washington. After touring BC and Canada for Company One Theatre and Vancouver Playhouse, she began teaching acting, directing, and theatre history at Capilano College where she has been serving as Chair of the Visual and Performing Arts division since 1992. Her long list of directing credits includes King Lear, Timberlake Wertenbaker's The Grace of Mary Traverse, and Howard Korder's Search and Destroy. Other projects include a production of The Rocky Horror Picture Show with Silk Stocking Productions.

Bill is an award-winning sound designer, composer, musician, and foley artist who has worked extensively in theatre, dance, film, and television. His designs are enigmatic for their live use of digital technologies to create cinematic effects in a theatre environment. Bill is also a co-artistic director of the experimental performing arts company, The Extreme Shoe.

Natasha is a skilled Director, Actor and Acting Instructor with specialisations in the Meisner Technique, scene study and new play creation. She holds BA Honours in Drama from Bishop's University, Quebec and recently graduated from UBC with a Master of Fine Arts in Directing. She has extensive teaching experience.

Douglas has been involved in the business for over 30 years.  He's an award winning director, actor, teacher and writer. His short film Stick Up is currently playing on the Comedy Network. His screenplay Redemption won Best Short Drama at the 2005 International Family Film Festival's writing competition in Los Angeles.
He's currently in pre-production on two family-oriented feature films...if you are interested, he would love the help.

Theatre BC: Douglas has served as adjudicator for both the Central Interior and Skeena Zone festivals, and he led workshops in Directing (2006) and Physical Action (2007) at Mainstage.

Robin holds an MFA in directing and has been stage managing, directing, workshopping, and occasionally creating new Canadian plays since 1984. For three years she was the Associate Artistic Director at the New Play Centre (now Playwright's Theatre Centre) in Vancouver. She has adjudicated for the Calgary High School Drama Festival and led a Playwriting Workshop for Princess Margaret Senior Secondary. Directing credits include: The Twang of the Bowstring; Boy’s Life for Studio 58, Langara College; Blue Caribou at New Play Centre; Two in the Morning at Grinning Dragon Theatre. In 1993 she appeared in Wumpa for The Full Figure Theatre Company. In 1995, along with 5 colleagues, she co-wrote and performed in Mom's the Word, a play about becoming a mother. It was performed over 750 times by the original cast and has also been produced around the world and translated into 7 different languages. Robin served as the Associate Director of a production in London’s West End in 2003. The same writing collective has rejoined to create the sequel to Mom’s the Word entitled Mom’s the Word2 Unhinged which will premiere at the Arts Club Theatre in Vancouver in the fall of 2005. Robin currently teaches acting at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops.

Theatre BC: Robin was a dramaturge for the Special Merit Winner "A Year Off" at the 2006 New Play Festival and served as juror for the Canadian National Playwriting Competition in 1991.

John is a seasoned stage and screen actor, inspiring director, theatre instructor and adjudicator. He received his training at Camosun College/Bastion Theatre Professional Actor Training Programme in Victoria. Since then he has appeared in numerous productions on stage, including as a 2-time recipient of the Best Actor Award at Theatre BC's Mainstage Festivals. He has been seen on screen in The X-Files, The Sentinel, The Outer Limits and The Grey Fox (feature film). John also served as Theatre Education Director with Chemainus Theatre Co. He is currently serving as Artistic Director of Phantom Poets in Prince George.

A resident teacher at the Actors Working Academy, Judy has been acting since the age of 7. She is best known for her nine years as Mary Ellen on the Emmy Award winning series The Waltons.
On stage, Judy has starred in numerous productions including: Cinderella, Sound of Music, Annie Get Your Gun, Social Security, Ranchers and Rustlers, Volstead Blues, Weekend Comedy, and Move Over Mrs. Markham. For eight years, Judy was the co-artistic director for two theatres in Canada, Celebrations in Winnipeg, and Jubilations in Edmonton. During this time she collaborated as a writer and director on more than forty shows. She has appeared in Stargate, Love Boat, Millennium and more.
Judy imparts her years of empirical knowledge in the business generously. She is a caring and warm professional.

Theatre BC: Judy has given workshops in Acting for the Camera & Nailing The Audition at Backstage. She was adjudicator for the Fraser Valley 2000 Zone Festival, and also conducted a Theatre Instructor tour for the Central Interior Zone.

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Throughout his extensive career as an actor, writer, and director, Morris has received many awards, including 12 Jessies and the 1995 Govenor General's Award for Playwriting for The Ends of the Earth. He received his BFA from UBC in Creative Writing and Theatre and trained as an actor in London. He has directed shows for the Vancouver Playhouse, The Arts Club Theatre, Tarragon Theatre (Toronto), The Vancouver Opera, and Green Thumb. His numerous writing credits include Vigil, 7 Stories, The Cost of Living, 2B WUT UR, and most recently, Lawrence and Holloman.

Theatre BC: Morris acted as Instructor for two workshops on Directing at Backstage '99.

Suzie has worked as an actor, director, teacher, and writer for close to thirty years. 
She has recently been busy as an actor in several new play workshops with the Playwrights Theatre Centre on Granville Island.  Her most recent screen work was a role in a made for t.v. movie directed by Richard Benjamin and starring Judy Davis.
Suzie has taught Scene Study at the National Theatre School in Montreal, and directed the inaugural theatre production at the O'Keefe Ranch stage in Vernon.
She teaches mask to High School students, and also teaches Creative Drama for clients with disabilities.
In 2005, CBC tv featured a segment of the multi-media play, "Women in Fish", for their project "On The Waterfront". Suzie was a performer in this production which focussed on the history of the fishing community from Galiano Island.
A founder of Tamahnous Theatre, Headlines Theatre, and the Women in View Festival, she has been awarded Canada Council grants, BC Cultural grants for writing, and has received Jesse Richardson Award nominations for both acting and writing

Theatre BC: Suzie served as an adjudicator in several Theatre BC Zones previously, including at the CIZ Festival in Prince George in 2005 and both the North Shore and Fraser Valley Zones in 2006. She has also led workshops and juried the National Playwriting Competition.

Barbara is a Victoria-based actor, dancer, choreographer, singer, director, writer and teacher who has worked all across Canada. She has served as Artistic Director for Company of all Sorts (Victoria), and Theatre for Young Audiences (Winnipeg). Barbara has many directing and choreography credits covering 25 years, and she won the Dora Mavor Moore Award in Directing for "Dinasaurs and All That Rubbish" in 1995. She was nominated again for "A Prominse is a Promise", which also won her a nomination for the Chalmers Award in Writing/Adaptation. Her solo piece, "Coyote Lips", was part of the UNO Festival of Solo Performance in 2001. Acting credits include productions for Kaleidoscope Theatre & Belfry Theatre (Victoria), Prairie Theatre Exchange (Winnipeg), Centaur Theatre (Montreal), Globe Theatre (Regina) and CBC Radio (Vancouver).
Barbara was an adjudicator for Kaleidoscope Theatre's Youth Playwright's Competition and director at the subsequent Youth Playwrights' Festival in 1997/98.

Michelle is a director, writer and actor. She is also the co-artistic director of Yorick Theatre. Most recently she directed Necropolis and The Life of Galileo at the Van East Cultural Centre. Other directing credits include: A Brief Herstory of Time (which she also wrote), Beat The Sunset, Vanunu: I Am Your Spy, and The Beauty Machine, all which have been nominated for numerous Jessie Awards. She has also directed voice-over actors in an animation series. Her short films insight and Big Shoes To Fill have both played at the Vancouver International Film Festival.
As an actor, Michelle has been seen on stage in, Bard on the Beach's Measure for Measure, Touchstone's Grace; in David Mackay's Big Shoes to Fill; in the Michael MacLennan's Beat the Sunset; in Beyond the Night Cafe and in various improvised shows at the Vancouver TheatreSports League. Other acting credits include Theatre Northwest's productions of Oleanna and Amadeus.
In the realms of mask work: she co-created Big Arte, a
workshop/demonstration on Commedia Dell'Arte (Italian Mask Theater) for Yorick Theatre; she was the mask advisor on Studio 58's The Cradle Will Rock; she also co-directed The Beauty Machine for Greenthumb Theatre, a masked children's show; and she created and directed the Tale of Namuh Neeb told entirely by over 60 masks.
She has taught at U.B.C., Capilano College and various highschools and community centres as well as at Bard on the Beach. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of British Columbia in Theatre

Theatre BC: Michelle gave an Acting In The Mask workshop at Backstage'99 .

Randy Poulis graduated with his MFA in Theatre Design from the University of Victoria in 2004 and is currently a lighting instructor at UVic. Recent professional productions include lighting designs for Peter Pan for Kaleidoscope Theatre in Victoria and Here On The Flight Path for Theatre North West in Prince George. A longtime member of TheatreBC, Randy has been involved at every level of the organization. Besides lighting, Randy has also lent his hand to sound and scenic design as well as directing. For a complete resume, visit his website: http://www.lightworkz.ca

Theatre BC:  Randy led a 2-part course entitled "Lighting For Dummies" at Mainstage 2005 in Nanaimo and 2006 in Maple Ridge.

THEATRE BC
P.O. Box 2031,
Nanaimo, BC V9R 6X6
Phone: (250) 714-0203 or Fax: (250) 714-0213

 "Promoting the Development of Theatre in B.C. since 1932"